Colorado is one of eight states where a new ad linking big oil and gas prices to Mitt Romney’s campaign will air this week on network television and the web.

The ad is from Priorities USA Action, the super PAC supporting President Obama’s re-election bid.

“How can the American people trust Gov. Romney to bring down gas prices when he and his biggest backers benefit so much from gas prices being so high?” said Paul Begala, senior adviser for Priorities USA Action.

More than a week after the Denver County GOP Assembly, it’s still difficult to sort out what led to what one Republican called a “descent into madness.”

Florence Sebern said she unwittingly sparked the brouhaha that led to claims that Ron Paul supporters were trying to take over when she approached a floor microphone to ask that the assembly adopt a calendar that included taking a lunch break.

She said the group Denver Republican Women had arranged for five businesses to sell food to the 650 or so Republicans expected to show up at the assembly because a lunch break had been planned.

But district captain Steve Brown argued what happened was a “militant minority attempt to take control of the assembly through use of these tactics of disruption, accusation and intimidation.”

“The argument was that the new rules should be adopted so we could have a lunch hour, but the real reason was not that at all,” he said. “It seems rather that it was designed to draw out the assembly meeting time out so long that most other delegates would leave either in disgust or out of boredom, leaving the remaining assembly to go onto elections which would feature mostly their own supporters.”

Democrats and Republicans held a number of county assemblies today, but it looks like the real fun happened at the Denver County Republican Assembly, with Ron Paul supporters clashing with party officers.

Republican Kelly Maher videotaped the event and posted it on her personal YouTube account. She said Ron Paul delegates were trying to shout down Denver County GOP Chairman Danny Stroud, Treasurer Alex Hornaday and Secretary Brett Moore.

As the year goes on we’ll no doubt hear more about Americans’ dissatisfaction with Congress, about the nation’s red-blue divide and about how rancorous our political process has become.

With that in mind, I’d like to share for you remarks Colorado College professor Tom Cronin, an expert on the presidency, delivered as part of our Battleground Colorado panel yesterday:

“This is America’s 57th presidential election. That’s remarkable. No nation has that record. We’ve never postponed one. We’ve never delayed it. We’ve peacefully transferred power 21 times from one party or another,” Cronin said.

“We need as a country to occasionally celebrate the fact that we’re able to pull off these elections. During the Great Depression or the Civil War, we didn’t postpone them. And we didn’t try to turn it into, like (Hugo) Chavez or (Vladimir) Putin, into a six-year term or life term. It’s a remarkable success.”

Cronin also paraphrased former Sen. Al Simpson, noting that “You can’t love democracy and hate politics and politicians. It just doesn’t work that way. They go together. That’s the deal.”

As the political season rolls on and as we scurry to our respective corners, I tagged those as a messages worth tucking away.

Call pointed to a recent interview with Rick Palacio, chairman of the Colorado Democratic Party, who told The Denver Post “What this caucus is about, is just, it’s really a way for the president’s supporters to show their enthusiasm” and “The caucus … is about showing that enthusiasm and coming together as a party.”

“If Democrats in Colorado are really as enthusiastic about the re-election of Barack Obama as their state chairman promises they are, we should expect Democratic caucus turnout today that meets or exceeds the turnout of 120,971 the Democrats saw in 2008,” Call wrote in a news release.

Said Palacio: “It is a preposterous claim on Ryan Call’s part that if we don’t have more than 120,000 people tonight it’s a failure.”

Palacio also pointed out the congressional races for Democrats are basically opponent free in this year’s primary. In 2008, an open seat in the 2nd Congressional District featured Democrats Wil Shafroth, Joan Fitz-Gerald and Jared Polis vying for the nomination.

I learned a lot about Romney’s past when I covered Colorado’s 2008 U.S. Senate race between Democrat Mark Udall and Republican Bob Schaffer. Romney also ran for president that cycle, and stories about his background showed that Romney’s and Udall’s great grandfathers were Mormon pioneers whose paths crossed in 19th-century Arizona.

Check out this 1884 editorial in the Apache Chief in St. John’s, Ariz.

“The Mormon disease is a desperate one and the rope and the shotgun are the only cure,” the newspaper wrote. “Hang a few of their polygamist leaders such as . . . Udall, Romney . . . and others of their nature and a stop will be put to it.”

For a history buff, reading up on the Udalls and the Romneys would prove to be one of the more interesting angles in the 2008 Senate race. Here’s an edited version of the story I wrote in December 2007:

If the bill passes both chambers and is signed by the governor, the office would start posting election results with the June primary.

Rich Coolidge, public information officer for SOS Scott Gessler, said the issue of posting results comes up every presidential election year. Often, Coolidge is fielding questions from reporters outside Colorado. His answer to “Where can we get Colorado results?” has always been “From the Associated Press.” (The Denver Post also gets its results from AP).

Gessler decided 2012 was the year for the office to start posting the numbers. He needs lawmakers’ permission, however, to spend up to $776,460 to get it done – money that exists in the department of state’s cash fund.

The big question: With all eyes on Colorado this fall, will we see Gessler calling races live on CNN, as GOP Chairman Ryan Call did during last week’s Republican caucuses?

Minority Leader Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, said when the sprinkles fell off his confection he jokingly scooped them up and threw them at two Democrats, Majority Leader John Morse of Colorado Springs and Senate President Brandon Shaffer of Longmont.

“Glitter bomb!” Cadman said at the time, although later he described it as a sugar bomb.

Glitter bombing — throwing glitter on someone at a public event — is an act of protest and the targets often are opposed to same-sex marriage.

A student attempted to throw a glitter bomb at presidential candidate Mitt Romney the night of Colorado’s GOP caucuses. Peter Lucas Smith, 20, was fired from his post as an unpaid intern assigned to the Senate Democratic press office.

Lynn Bartels thinks politics is like sports but without the big salaries and protective cups. The Washington Post's "The Fix" blog has named her one of Colorado's best political reporters and tweeters.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.